A Beginner’s Guide to Road Tax

Featured image adapted from Picataram
For many of you, the most difficult thing about renewing your road tax is actually remembering the deadline for you to renew it! However, there are also many youngsters out there who are about to renew their road tax for the first time, so this article is for you!

When Should You Renew Your Road Tax?

The most straightforward answer is that you should renew your road tax before it expires. It will expire one year from your previous renewal, and the renewal will be counted from the day your existing one expires. So for example, if your road tax expires on 16 January, it will always expire on 16 January! If you want to renew your road tax earlier, that’s no problem either, so long as you do it within 60 days before the expiry of your road tax. A raod tax that expires in May can only be renewed in March at the very earliest.

What Happens if You Do Not Renew Your Road Tax?

You won’t like the consequences. Your road tax might be a subtle thing in one corner of your windscreen, but eagle-eyed police or JPJ officers are always on the lookout for expired road taxes! If you end up getting flagged down while on the road or during a road block and your road tax has expired, be prepared to cough up RM3,000 in penalty fines. Don’t try bribing the officers either, as that might land you in even hotter water with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission!

Things to Bring/Have

Your Geran or VOC

A geran, or title, for your car is what a birth certificate is to you. It shows the details of your car such as car model, the year it is manufactured, ownership status, and so on. The geran is gradually being phased out and replaced by the Vehicle Ownership Certificate (VOC), so if you haven’t changed your geran to a VOC yet, a car owner simply has to head to the nearest JPJ with their MyKad, verify that you’re the owner with a scanned thumbprint, and get your VOC for free! It’s smaller, more compact, and accessible online, which makes it much easier than your A4-sized geran!

A Valid Insurance Cover Note

In the age of technology and metadata, a physical insurance cover note proving that you have a valid car insurance is no longer strictly necessary, as the officer can easily access that information online. However, it doesn’t hurt to be safe than sorry and bring your cover note along. You never know if there might be a technical glitch or Internet downtime while you’re there! Besides, you don’t need to pay anything extra to bring it, and it might even save you a second trip.

Cash!

You need to pay for every road tax renewal. The amount you need to pay is, fortunately, not rocket science, as it’s actually stated on the front page of your geran or VOC. The rates are listed for per six months and per 12 months. Regardless of the validity tenure you wish to renew, ensure that you have sufficient cash to pay when you’re at the counter!

Renewing Road Tax

For those who don’t know where to go or what to do, you have several methods to renew your road tax, namely going to a JPJ branch, going to a Pos Malaysia outlet, or online.

A Runner Can Do It for You!

Are you unavailable to renew your road tax in person because you’re working or outstation? Don’t worry, you don’t actually have to do it yourself if you don’t want to. With the exception of changing your geran to VOC, which must be done in person, you can actually pay a runner a small fee to do your renewal for you. Your renewed road tax will be ready for you by the end of the day, at your convenience.

Conclusion

Road tax is actually a pretty straightforward affair once you know about it, so don’t fret!